Allison Smartt
1) Where was the starting research for your design?
My research always begins with my initial emotional reaction to a play as well as with the early conversations with the director, Tyler Marchant. He and I hoped to use sound as a means of establishing setting and tone of each scene and/or act. We traded adjectives for each setting–St. Ives as “restricted,” “cool” and “classic” while Africa was “frenetic,” “dramatic” and “warm.” I took these adjectives and began researching sounds that I felt lent themselves to these tones and feelings. These sounds took the form of instruments like harpsichord, violin and cello (for St. Ives) and female voices (for Africa).
2) How did you turn that research into a functional design for this play?
After I found the sound that Tyler and I both liked, I moved forward by finding tracks that were related in even more specific ways, such as tempo, key and instrumental composition.
While doing this research, I was drawn to pieces that created a larger sonic theme, no matter what setting they were supposed to represent. For instance, I felt the powerful voice and vibrato of Yande Codou Sene, an infamous gewel (traditional storyteller/poet/praise singer) from Senegal, sounded eerily similar to the way violins sound when played in close harmony with each other. Sonic themes like this were important to my design because I wanted to highlight that these women are united by their shared emotional traumas and their womanhood despite their different cultural backgrounds.
It was then taking all of these ideas and genres of music and boiling everything down to the pieces that most helped to support the text and dramatic movements of the play.
3) What excited you about designing this show?
I was excited by the two strong female voices and the play’s exploration of friendship, motherhood and bonds between women. They have such a powerful, almost haunting, understanding of each other and of the emotional and literal prisons in which they both live.
4) What was your biggest challenge with this design?
Creating an “unspecified location in Africa” was by far the biggest challenge. How could I possibly represent an entire continent in three songs? I can’t. It would be irresponsible of me to try to totalize such an expansive and incredibly diverse place in such a way.
However, I still needed to convey to the audience that the play was moving from England to Africa. To aurally relocate an entire audience without relying on stereotypes of African music (drumming, chanting, etc.) proved to be challenging. After all, the intermission music is the first hint the audience is given that the play moves to a different continent in Act II.
With research and recommendations from friends who have backgrounds in different African drumming and music styles, I found music that, I feel, highlights the themes of womanhood while also establishing a new setting.